Danger in a Red Dress (35 page)

“You want to know why I would believe Carrick about you?” It was spooky how exactly he knew what irked her most.

“Yes. Yes!” Her irritation and bewilderment flooded back, and she turned on him. “Why did a man like you, who is so smart about people, take his word over mine?”

Gabriel stood and limped over to her. He looked down at her, insisting without words that she look back, and listen and hear. “I know what love is. I do. I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it. I have a foster family, and they love me and I love them. I see my sisters with their husbands and their children, and I can almost warm myself by their love. Almost. But it’s not the kind of love I feel when I look at you, when I think about you. Do you know, the first time Carrick showed me your picture, I felt a punch to the gut. The woman he told me was a thief and a wh—” He stopped.

“Oh, don’t stop now.” Hannah waved grandly. “A whore. He told you I was a whore, and you believed him.”

“Yes.” Gabriel kept his voice low, giving his explanation without apology or insistence—and for that reason, she listened. “I believed him because he was my brother. I had spent my adult life focused on finding my father and my family, not because I was dissatisfied with my foster family and their love, but because I was haunted by the memory of my mother and how . . . awful . . . she was. Broken. She was broken. I thought . . . I dreamed that perhaps she had taken me away from a good man who would be glad to have me as a son. I thought if his family was good, there was a chance for me.”

Aghast, Hannah asked, “What did you think was going to happen if you came from a
bad
family? Did you think you would suddenly go nuts and pick up an Uzi and shoot people?”

“It sounds stupid now, doesn’t it?” He limped away again, to look out her window at the view of the next unit of brick apartments.

She followed him, getting angrier as she talked. “Think about this, Gabriel—how stupid is it to hire a nurse to care for you when you’re critically wounded, a nurse who you believe killed one of her patients? One or more?
That
is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” She didn’t know which idea infuriated her more—that he actually believed she’d killed Mrs. Manly, or that he’d been dumb enough to hire her while he believed it.

“I’m not normally a stupid man.”

“You were stupid this time.”

“Was I?” She never saw him move, but suddenly, he turned on her, towered over her. “Was I?”

“If you believed . . .”

“Did I?”

He’d trapped her. He made her face a fact she, in her anger, didn’t want to face. Gabriel would never have hired her if he really believed she’d committed murder. He would have gotten her into his car, driven her to the police station, and turned her in.

Catching her wrist, he reeled her in to him. “No matter how often Carrick told me you were the villain, no matter how damning the evidence against you, I couldn’t quite believe it. I saw you with Mrs. Manly. She wasn’t a stupid woman, either, and I watched how you treated her, and how she treated you. And I saw how she despised her own son.” He had Hannah completely enfolded in his arms now, and he looked down at her, so serious, struggling for redemption. “The first time I saw your photo, I knew I was looking at the woman of my dreams. Everything about you was perfect for me. But I’ve had my dreams broken to dust too many times, and I doubted. I looked at Carrick and saw what I wanted to see. My desire to have the perfect family tainted my instincts and observations.”

“Don’t forget to use the loss of my nursing license as an excuse, too.” She mocked him, then realized she was convincing herself.

Being this close to him melted her irritation—and that would never do. She tried to jerk herself out of his arms.

He held her. “Let me finish. Then if you want me to go, I’ll let you. But just . . . let me apologize.”

“Men don’t apologize,” she stated flatly. “I’ve worked for and with enough men to know—a man doesn’t apologize. No matter how wrong he is, or how big a jerk he’s been.”

“Then you should stay and watch and listen. This moment might never come again.”

Damn. He was good. “Go on,” she said grudgingly.

“You want a man who won’t lie to you, and I’ve lied to you in every way possible. I’ve lied to you about who I am. I’ve lied about what I wanted from you. I’ve lied with my body and my words.”

“How do you know what I want in a man?”

He didn’t answer that. Of course not. He knew because he’d spied on her.

She flushed with fury once more.

He kept talking. “You want a man who won’t use you for his own ends. I’ve done that. I used you to discover the truth, and I almost got you killed.” His arms developed a fine tremor. He looked at her, his green eyes bleak with pain and remorse.

He didn’t hurry his words. They came out slowly, carefully, as if he’d thought out this speech a thousand times, and the hint of a Texas drawl made her warm to the man . . . while being held close to him had made her warm enough. And flushed. And breathless.

“When Carrick shot you . . . I’ve spent my life thinking the anger inside me was an enemy to be controlled, to be purged. But at that moment, I realized my anger had been placed in me for a reason—so I could release it and kill the man who had murdered you.”

Somewhere in the recesses of her unconscious mind, she had heard the sound of Gabriel’s fists striking Carrick’s face, and now she flinched at the memory.

“He’s not dead,” Gabriel said, “and I’m sorry about that.”

“He’s your brother.”

“I’m sorry about that, too.” The tremor in his arms eased, yet still his eyes were tormented. “At night, I relive that moment when he raised the gun, and I tried to get between you, and every night, I’m not fast enough and you go down. . . .” His hands flexed against her ribs. “None of my nightmares compare to that. None of them even come close.”

She hadn’t thought that his nightmares would match hers. But hers were of a different shooting, on a street down from Wal-Mart, where the ligustrum hedge grew thick, and there a shot rang out, and she was never fast enough to save Gabriel. . . .

His hands slid around to grasp hers, and his deep voice was husky and warm as he said, “I wish, Hannah, that you would marry me, and let me spend my life making up for all the foolish things I’ve done.”

“Is that a proposal?” Because it sounded frighteningly real.

“No, it’s just a suggestion. When I really propose, I intend to grovel.”

“I’ll like that.”

“I thought you would, and the practice, so my brothers tell me, will do me good.”

Hannah laughed unsteadily and wondered if Gabriel was joking. “Your sisters told me to marry you for your money.”

“My sisters are a bunch of busybodies.” Leaning his nose into her hair, he took a long breath, as if he were relearning her scent after months of deprivation.

“They’re very nice busybodies.” She put her head on his shoulder, leaned her head into his neck, and took a deep breath of her own. He wasn’t the only one deprived.

“Yes, and I do have a lot of money.” Clearly, he didn’t panic at the idea of being married for it, either.

“Hope also suggested that I marry you so I could be part of your large family.”

“Sometimes a large family is nice. Sometimes . . . not so nice. Like when they’re being busybodies.” He sounded wryly humorous. “Do you want to know why I think you should marry me?”

She looked up sharply.

His hands flexed around hers, and he watched her with the simmering heat of the slowly boiling kettle.

“Why?” She only mouthed the word.

“Because when I pray, I say your name first, and I say your name last. When I breathe, I breathe for you. Every kind thing I say, every good thing I do, I do because I know you’re in the world and I . . . I love you.” He smiled at her with his mouth, his eyes . . . his soul.

He made her feel as if her heart had grown to fill her chest, warming her, healing her.

She lifted her head.

He leaned down.

Their lips touched. . . .

The kettle whistled shrilly.

They pulled apart, and Hannah wanted to shriek as loudly as the kettle.

“Don’t bother yourself, Miss Hannah.” She jumped at the sound of Daniel’s voice in the doorway.

Gabriel tightened his grip on her, and glared at his employee and friend.

Daniel popped in so quickly and smirked so affably, it was obvious he’d been listening at the door. “I’ll take care of that.”

Gabriel watched him pour the water onto the tea. “Daniel’s related to the busybody family.”

“I can see that.” Hannah was amused . . . and frustrated.

“Just wanting to catch the water before it boiled away.” Daniel opened the freezer. It was empty. “I’ll go to the store and get ice. Do you need anything else, Miss Hannah?”

“Milk,” Hannah said promptly. “Bread. Bananas . . . Should I make you a list?”

“Might be a good idea.” Daniel glanced at Gabriel and flinched. “Or maybe that can wait until later. Ice, milk, bread, bananas. Anything else I can think of that you’ll need.” He consulted his watch. “I’ll be back in thirty minutes!”

“Don’t hurry,” Gabriel told him.

Daniel laughed and shut the door behind him.

“He’s a good guy.” Hannah relaxed into Gabriel’s embrace.

“Even better, he doesn’t hold a grudge.”

“Hold a grudge?”

“He’ll never hear the end of how you handcuffed him. The other guards give him trouble about it all the time.” Gabriel tightened his arms around her. “I encourage them.”

“That was pretty kick-ass of me, wasn’t it?” She looked into Gabriel’s face, smoothed his hair away from his temples, wished she could kiss him right now.

“You’re a legend.” Pride sat on his broad cheek-bones, shone from his black hair. Pride tugged at the corners of his mouth, glowed in his green eyes. “You handcuffed Daniel Howard, and you lassoed me.”

“What is it with you Texans using that word?” She stiffened. “I did not lasso you!”

“Lassoed me like a long-legged calf.” He wrapped his hand around her neck, and leaned his forehead against hers. “Luckily, when you hold the other end of the lasso, we’re both caught tight. Right?”

She gave in. “Right.”

“Because I love you and you . . . ?”

“I love you.”

“Say it again.”

She laughed a little and wiped away a mist of sentimental tears. “I love you.”

He kissed her, warm and wet, a taste of all the passion in all the years to come. “And you’ll marry me?”

She caught her breath, and caught at her rapidly vanishing good sense. “Sometime next year, after I settle into the master’s program, we’ll sneak off and get married—”

He kissed her and contradicted her. “You’ll marry me this summer on the ranch with my whole family in attendance.”

“You don’t get your way about everything, you know.” She scowled at him.

“Certainly not.” He brushed her hair off her forehead. Kissed her cheek, her nose, her lips. “Once I’m married, I’ll be a meek and obedient husband.”

Remembering his brothers and their wives, Hannah didn’t know whether to believe every word or snort in disbelief.

“Hey.” Gabriel hugged her close. “I glanced in the bedroom. It appears you made the bed.”

“Gabriel, I don’t have time to fool around. I need to move in.”

“My busybody relatives would be glad to help carry boxes. I’ll call them . . . later.” He walked her backward toward the bedroom, stopping only to kiss her and kiss her again.

“Gabriel,” she yielded, and sighed, and kissed him back.

When Daniel arrived with his bag of groceries, he opened the front door very cautiously. He listened, then with a grin, closed it again, and took up guard duty.

Until that evening when the Prescott sisters and the Manly brothers, and all their spouses and children, arrived, Gabriel and Hannah were not disturbed.

Jacqueline pulled her backpack out of her employee locker and headed out the back door to her car, parked under the broad branches of the two-hundred-year-old blue oak that had given the winery its name. The little Civic started right up, and she headed south on Highway 29, the windows wide and the wind ripping through her hair.

The color was like the shimmer of moonlight . . . or so she’d been told. She realized now she should have cut it, and dyed it black, or brown, or purple, or any color besides this freakish platinum. The blond was too distinctive, too easy to spot. More than once, she glanced behind her, watching for a strange vehicle with the strange guy in it, but everything seemed normal. Then, as she pulled into the little town of San Michael, she spotted a black Mercedes SL550 with dark tinted windows, and that chill rippled through her.